Mandela

<p><b>The first biography of Nelson Mandela written by an African scholar, t</b><b>his groundbreaking book offers a radically de-mythologized take on a global</b><b> icon of anticolonial liberation struggles</b><b>.</b><br><br>Leading sociologist Xolela Mangcu draws on original interviews and archival research – as well as on his own unique understanding of the complexities of Black South African culture – to offer an important corrective account of Mandela’s identity, character, and political career. Mangcu not only sets the record straight about Mandela's Thembu, rather than Xhosa, heritage, but also uncovers a fundamental political pragmatism Mandela developed thanks to his family’s strategic alliances with colonialists and through his own Victorian-style education at leading British mission schools. What emerges is a Mandela whose life story belongs less to the realm of hagiography and more to the realm of real-world struggle, with all the contradictions it entails.</p>